Mining requires deep pockets

Outside of the aerospace and defense industries, mining is arguably the most capital-intensive business in the world.

You have to move a lot of earth to get at the mineral-bearing ore, and this requires complex structures, equipment, vehicles and heavy machinery – much of it extremely sophisticated and often made to order. It’s also not uncommon to have to build railways and power stations. Their respective price-tags come with a lot of zeroes attached.

In North-West province, the open-pit operations at FQM Kansanshi and Barrick Lumwana operate fleets of massive haul trucks each capable of carrying up to 240 tonnes of rock. The trucks cost more than $4 million apiece. The tyres, which are twice the height of an average person, cost $50 000 each.

On the Copperbelt, Glencore’s Mopani mine is upgrading and modernizing its operations at a cost of $1.1 billion. This involves the sinking of three new shafts – the big-ticket items of the mining industry, mobilizing manpower, machinery and high-tech systems on a scale unmatched in more traditional industries. Shafts allow mines to access new and higher-grade ore bodies deeper underground, as older reserves are mined out.

One of the shafts, the Synclinorium, in Kitwe, has cost around $320 million. (Synclinorium comes from the geological term syncline, which describes a rock layer which has folds in it). The shaft is 1.2 km deep. On the surface, the superstructure is nearly the height of a 20-storey building, and resembles the launch-pad of a space rocket. The mind-bogglingly huge winder assembly took more than three years to make, and its highly specialized components were sourced from China, Britain and Germany. A dedicated generator building houses a bank of six gigantic diesel back-up generators, each bigger than a jet engine, which kick in automatically should the power fail. A $4 million mega-crane stands alongside – it was cheaper for Mopani to buy it than pay the $12 million hire fee. On any given day during the three years that the Synclinorium was taking shape, there were a couple of hundred workers or contractors on site, involved in some aspect or other of the construction.

And the Synclinorium is just the start: Mopani’s other two shafts, at Mindola and Mufulira, will cost $560 million, and will be sunk to a depth of 2 km – making them the deepest copper mines on the African continent.

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Mining for Zambia is an industry website aimed at promoting a better understanding of the Zambian mining industry. It highlights key industry issues, and shares information about mining and its contribution to the economy and society. All the content, except for external news items, is free for use.